MJO and Tropical Cyclogenesis in the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Pacific:

Case Study and Idealized Numerical Modeling

Lin Ching

Aiyyer, A., and J. Molinari, 2008: MJO and Tropical Cyclogenesis in the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Pacific: Case Study and Idealized

Numerical Modeling. J. Atmos. Sci., 65, 2691-2704.

Introduction• Nakazawa (1986) analyzed the distribution of global TCs during 1979 and

found that they tended to form within the convective envelope of the MJO. • This result was confirmed in subsequent studies that used longer data record

for the Indian and western Pacific (Liebmann et al. 1994; Hall et al. 2001), eastern North Pacific (Maloney and Hartmann 2000a), and the Gulf of Mexico (Maloney and Hartmann 2000b).

• Liebmann et al. (1994) have found that the environment associated with the convective phase of the MJO consists of anomalous low-level cyclonic vorticity and convergence, two key ingredients that favor cyclogenesis (e.g., Gray 1968; McBride and Zehr 1981).

• Maloney and Hartmann (2000a, 2001) indicated that the MJO wind anomalies at the lower and upper levels also impact the environmental vertical shear.

• Maloney and Hartmann (2000a) argued that the vertical shear during the convective phase of the MJO is more conducive for cyclogenesis than the nonconvective phase. They also reported that, over the eastern Pacific, TCs are 4 times more likely to form during the MJO’s convective phase than during its nonconvective phase.

Introduction• Molinari et al. (1997) suggested that the MJO-related reversal in low-level

potential vorticity gradient provides a mechanism for amplification of waves arriving from upstream.

• Sobel and Maloney (2000) showed that barotropic wave activity flux convergence is enhanced during the convective phase of the MJO, indicating that wave accumulation (Holland 1995) plays a potentially important role in the amplification of incident waves.

• Maloney and Hartmann (2001) and Hartmann and Maloney (2001) found significant barotropic energy conversions from the mean state to the eddies during the convective phase of the MJO, and suggested that this is a useful framework for interpreting the modulation of tropical cyclogenesis by the MJO.

• The goals of this study are to examine – 1) the evolution of the environmental flow associated with the MJO and – 2) the evolution of easterly waves within the MJO background flow.

The MJO events leading to the formation of five TCs between 31 August and 17 September (Fig. 1) are studied, and it is suggested that the clustering of these storms was related to the passage of the MJO.

Data and method• 1.125o ECMWF data (the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather

Forecasts)• Global brightness temperatures (Tb) from the Cloud Archive User Service

(CLAUS) as a proxy for deep tropical convection.• The seasonal mean will refer to the average over the months July–

October. • We use 20-day low-pass and 2–6-day bandpass time-filtered fields to

describe, respectively, the slowly varying environment and wave-scale eddy fields.

• The time filtering is performed using the Lanczos filter (Duchon 1979).• To present further evidence of the MJO during August–September 1998,

we also perform a wavenumber-frequency spectrum analysis as described in Wheeler and Kiladis (1999). The MJO signal in the CLAUS Tb is extracted by retaining only those spectral components that correspond to wavenumbers 0–9 and periods 30–96 days.

Large-scale evolution10-20N 100-90W

Low-pass-filtered Tb and 850-hPa winds

unfiltered 850-hPa divergence and vorticity

Non-convective phase

convective phase

unfiltered 200–850-hPa vertical shear

Non-convective phase

convective phase

Despite the enhanced shear, five TCs formed within this region, and this suggests the importance of the favorable influence of the low-level convergence and relative vorticity associated with the convective phase of the MJO.

Barotropic energetics

For a barotropic fluid, linearized about a time invariant basic state, the exchange of kinetic energy between the eddies and the basic state (environment) is

The 20-day lowpass-filtered fields are used to compute the basic states.The eddies are defined using 2–6-day bandpass-filtered fields.

: the eddy kinetic energy (EKE) growth ratebaroKKC )',(

Non-convective phase convective phase

The genesis locations of TCs coincides with the regions of peak eddy growth. While this suggests that the barotropic calculations have correctly identified the regions of eddy growth, there again exists the possibility that the eddy growth may, in fact, represent the projection of the TCs onto the filtered data, in particular the 2–6-day bandpassed eddy fields.

Idealized barotropic modeling

The linearized barotropic vorticity equation on the sphere with a Rossby wave generator, Rayleigh friction, and biharmonic diffusion can be written as

zonal extent : earth’s circumference ; meridional extent : 20°S - 40°N ; grid spacing : 1°

The structure of theRossby wave forcing (F) is adapted from Kuo et al.(2001):

centered at λo=30°W, θo=15°N, with meridional scale λr=7°, and zonal e-folding scale θr=1°. The period of oscillation (T) is set to 3.5 days and the amplitude A=-8X10-13 s-2.

Uniform basic state (u=-8 ms-1)

In the absence of zonal and meridional variation in the basic state, the wave train continues to propagate westward and is subjected only to the damping and diffusion prescribed in the model.

Non-convective phase

Observation Model

Non-convective phase

Convective phase

Observation Model

Convective phase

the eddy momentum transport across the meridionally oriented jet within the eastern flank of the basic-state cyclonic gyre in the Gulf of Mexico.

the zonal wind convergence.

Summary and discussion• The convective phase of the MJO is associated with low-level convergence

and cyclonic relative vorticity, both conducive to tropical cyclogenesis.• The vertical shear within the climatological genesis area of the eastern

Pacific is much larger than in the nonconvective MJO period.• The northward shift in genesis location during the convective MJO phase

is in part due to the competing influences of high vertical shear and large-scale low-level vorticity and divergence.

• The regions of highest eddy growth coincide with the locations of the TC formation.

• The numerical experiments show that the propagation of these waves is influenced by the MJO-related environmental flow.

• During the nonconvective phase, the waves primarily tended to propagate westward into the eastern Pacific, but during the convective phase they propagated northward into the Gulf of Mexico.

Further issues• The results of this study raise several issues that need to be further

examined:

1. How often do strong MJO events such as the one high-lighted by the present case occur within the Gulf of Mexico?

2. Since the easterly waves are steered into the Gulf of Mexico by the environmental flow associated with the convective MJO phase, does this reduce the wave activity within the eastern Pacific?

3. What is the relative importance of the MJO’s role as compared to other processes such as the influence of the topography (e.g., Zehnder 1991; Zehnder and Gall 1991), ITCZ breakdown (e.g., Ferreira and Schubert 1997), and upper-level potential vorticity influences (e.g., Bosart and Bartlo 1991)?